Review of Mike Hodges: Land Escapes Exhibit at Richard and Barbara Basch Gallery, Ringling College of Art and Design

Review of Mike Hodges: Land Escapes Exhibit at Richard and Barbara Basch Gallery, Ringling College of Art and Design

By: Carol Erickson
September 12, 2014

Mike Hodges is a Sarasota-based artist who has exhibited his painting and drawings in local, regional and national galleries. His work even appeared on the cover of The New Yorker and is currently exhibiting his abstract paintings at the Basch Gallery in the Ringling College of Art & Design. Circles & squares are utilized in creating contextual abstractions and visual emotional memories of places Hodges has visited in the past…they all have a meaning.

Abstract painting does not come easy for everyone, but come with an open mind and a big imagination. It is open to interpretation and that is one of the beautiful things about this exhibit. Stand in the place that this talented artist occupied & try to imagine his thoughts upon each stroke of the brush. You will amazed how easy it will be (as it was for me) to admire & value each drawing and come away with a new appreciation.

Exhibit will be on display only until Friday, September 19th from 10:00 am to 3:00pm at The Basch Gallery, Ringling College of Art & Design, 2363 Old Bradenton Rd in Sarasota.

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Basch Gallery

RINGLING COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN

MEDIA CONTACT: TIM JAEGER

INTERIM ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF GALLERIES AND EXHIBITIONS

RINGLING COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN

941-359-75632700 N.TAMIAMI TRAIL SARASOTA, FL 34234-5895

[The Exhibition]

August 15 – September 19.

A reception to meet the artist will be held: Friday, September 12, 5:00-7:00PM in the Basch Gallery

Mike Hodges: Land Escapes

|ABOUT THIS EXHIBITION|

Imagine the tantalizing merger of two totally opposite forms of art, Realism and Abstraction and you will have a good idea of the nature of the work included in Land Escapes, a solo exhibition of paintings by Mike Hodges. The artist, a Ringling College of Art + Design professor and former The New Yorker cover artist explores the marriage of geometric shapes and amazing landscapes, all inspired by his travels in Florida, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado. In this on-going series of works, referred to as “contextual abstraction”, Hodges’ dynamic use of complementary hues and expressive texturing within shapes created from randomly arranged, deconstructed circles and squares echoes the rhythms and structural harmonies found in natural forms and references the mathematical ratios found in geometry.

Regarding this exhibition the artist stated, “The inspiration for these paintings stems from a graduate school experiment in which a single circle, inscribed in a square was dissected and rearranged, yielding a finite number of arcs floating in a composition that amazingly still retained a sense of harmony. Even then, as a representational artist, I always found that my roots in graphic (visual) design invariably led me back to abstraction as a means to evaluate and maximize compositional impact – imagery based solely on visual ‘attraction’ value, minus ‘attention’ value (meaning). Although I only pursued this circle/square idea for a short time, my curiosity about why I was so attracted to it remained unrealized, until nine years ago when I rediscovered these sketches and small paintings, and to my delight found that they still provoked my interest. Since then I have been exploring and reshaping the scope of this idea into works imbuing meaning into nonrepresentational forms.”

Mike Hodges is a Sarasota-based artist who has exhibited paintings and drawings in local, regional and national galleries and venues, including The Art Institute of Washington Gallery (Washington, DC), The Israel Museum (Jerusalem), and Olympia and York, Park Avenue Atrium Gallery (New York). His work was recently awarded First Place in the Longboat Key Center for the Arts “5th Annual Community Juried Exhibition”. He is currently on the faculty at Ringling College of Art + Design.

The Richard and Barbara Basch Gallery located off the lobby of the Academic Center hosts a varied exhibition program that includes annual exhibitions from the Basch Glass Collection as well as exhibitions of work by Ringling College students, faculty, alumni and other contemporary artists.

[HOURS AND COST]

Free Admission. Open Monday through Friday from 10:00am to 3:00pm. The gallery is closed on weekends and national holidays.

[LOCATION]

The Basch Gallery is located on the first floor of the Academic Builiding on the southside of the Ringling College of Art and Design campus at 2363 Old Bradenton Road.